HP L 5 manual Processing Color Documents, Non-Raster Color vs. Raster Color, Color Raster Data

Processing Color Documents

To process a color page, PCL provides ways of specifying and modifying color so that the printed result appears as the user desires. This section provides a conceptual overview of the process.

Non-Raster Color vs. Raster Color

All color portions of a page consist of either:

•Page Marking Primitives (non-raster data)

•Color Raster Data

Page Marking Primitives

Non-raster data consists of HP-GL/2 and PCL page marking primitives such as glyphs, rules, polygons, circles, and vectors. Page marking primitives contain no color information about the image. They merely mark the page with attributes assigned to the current working environment (for example, colors, patterns, logical operation modes, etc.). Page marking primitives act as stencils through which color “paint” is poured, forming a homogeneous pattern.

Page marking primitives print in the currently specified color, which is specified using the Foreground Color command. For example, if you specify the color blue using the Foreground Color command, and then send some text to the printer, the text will be printed blue.

Color Raster Data

Unlike page marking primitives, each pixel of a color raster image contains color information. A color raster pixel may be defined by either:

•Palette Entry Indices

•Direct Color Specifications

User-defined color patterns are a form of color raster, but each pixel of a user-defined color pattern can be defined only by palette entry indices, not by direct color specifications.

A-14 Color Printing Overview (Color LaserJet, 5, 5M, DeskJet) EN